Chris Jackson / Getty Images

BELIZE BLUNDER

Harry Makes First Gaffe Within Minutes of Touchdown

03.02.12 11:16 PM ET

Chris Jackson / Getty Images

Spot the difference?

Even by his grandfather’s standards, making your first gaffe within five minutes of touching down on foreign soil is good going.

But that’s exactly what Prince Harry has just done. As he walked past the press who were waiting at Belize airport—the majority of them having clocked up vast amounts of airmiles at huge expense to get there to cover his trip—Harry turned to the Governor General of Belize and said, ‘They’re not with me.’

The incident was eerily reminiscent of the moment when Harry’s father, Prince Charles, muttered under his breath, but within earshot of a microphone, about the BBC royal reporter Nicholas Witchell, ‘These bloody people. I can’t bear that man. I mean, he is so awful, he really is.’

Harry’s remark (unlike Charles’s) may have been made with a jocular intention and a wry smile, but it’s still a damn stupid thing to say, and immediately raises the question of whether or not Harry really has the maturity to be representing Queen and country overseas.

Harry may not be picking a fight with the press, but patronising and belittling men and women who buy ink by the barrel can be equally inadvisable.